As many of you know, the rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn for luxury skyscrapers destroyed a substantial part of historic low-rise Brooklyn, including buildings involved in the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

Because of the dramatic nature of eminent domain actions, Bloomberg promised the construction of a new park, Willoughby Square (which BC2 has asked to rename as Abolitionist Place Park), that would be anchored through public artwork to memorialize the abolitionist movement.

This project was delayed for many years because of a dispute over a parking lot, but now in the last year of the Mayor's administration, NYCEDC is rushing to begin work on the park in order to provide an amenity for the surrounding new skyscrapers: https://goo.gl/maps/zA1Bpea3Mu92KvuaA

However, the abolitionist component is receiving short-shrift in the process, and its budget has been cut significantly. The NYCEDC did their artist selection process completely secretly, violating the rules for the Percent for Art program.

Just yesterday, we learned that NYCEDC is trying to obtain approval for a conceptual design at the Public Design Commission at 10am on Tuesday, January 19: https://tinyurl.com/PDCmeetingform 

Here is the presentation planned for Tuesday: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/designcommission/downloads/pdf/01-19-2021-pres-DCLA-EDC-Willoughby-Art.pdf

While people can have different opinions about art, activists working on Brooklyn preservation believe the proposal does not satisfy the aims of the original idea. It is vague and incomplete, and doesn't even mention the history of abolitionism.

Please look at this letter to the Design Commission and consider signing here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSemasZ_1ikatsrI5JkqvP1XsX2I_jMknco9Rk0RchXQkonzEA/viewform

Or sign up to testify on Tuesday at 10am: https://tinyurl.com/PDCmeetingform 

In my opinion as a historian, holidays like MLK Day should encourage us to see fights for justice as embodied in lives of real people whose histories need to be told explicitly and directly. This memorial needs to be anchored in real history and embedded properly in the park.

P.S. The signup link again! https://tinyurl.com/PDCmeetingform